In the Crania JEgyptiaca, Dr. Morton had laid much stress upon an
observation of Ammianus Marcellinns, quoting hut a line. Among
his inedited MSS. for an improved edition of that work, we find the
whole citation as he intended that it should appear: —
* “ The following paragraph embraces all of this author’s remarks, which only make us
lament that he had not been more full and explicit: * Homines autem iEgyptiiplerique sub-
fusculi sunt, et atrati, magisque moestiores, gracilenti et aridi, ad singulos motus, excan-
descentes, controversi et reposcones acerrimi. Erubescit apud eos si quis non inficiando
tributa, plurimas in corpore vibices ostendat.’ ([Rerum gestarum, lib. xxxii.) ”
But, as the Doctor critically notices, it is difficult to associate the
idea of a black skin with the fact related by the same writer, that
the Egyptians “ blush and grow red.”
Investigation of this point, in 1844, impressed upon our judicious
ethnographer’s mind, results which he defines as follows: —
“ From the preceding facts, and many others which might be adduced, I think we may
safely conclude that the complexion of the Egyptians did not differ from that of the other
Caucasian races, in the same latitudes. That, while the higher classes, who were screened
from the action of the sun, were fair, in a comparative sense, the middle and lower classes,
like the modern Berbers, Arabs, and Moors, presented various shades of complexion, even
to a dark and swarthy tint, which the Greeks regarded as black, in comparison with their
own.”
So much contradiction is patent in the opinions of the early Greek
writers, with regard to the complexion and physical characters of the
Egyptians, and the dubiousness has been increased to such an inextricable
extent by the opposing scholasticisms of modern historians,
yoked with the ‘ ‘ first impressions ’ ’ of unscientific tourists, that the only
inference we can attain is, that the Egyptians of the Hew Empire —
that is, from the XVIIth dynasty downwards—were a mixed population
; presenting considerable varieties of color and conformation.
Morton took the whole question out of the hands of the Greeks and
their subsequent copyists, when he appealed directly to the iconography
of the sculptures, and to the mummied remains of the old population
found in the catacombs. Before pursuing, therefore, the monumental
history of the Egyptian type into the earliest times, let us endeavor
to see what were its physical characters subsequently to the Restoration
in the seventeenth century b . c . ; and afterwards we can better compare
them with the pictorial and embalmed vestiges of earlier date.
Although it will he shown that Dr. Morton, since the publication
of his Crania JEgyptiaca, had made important modifications in some
of his opinions, there are others which have withstood triumphantly
the test of time. When he published in 1844, his object was to describe
and figure the people of Egypt as they appear on the monu-
ments and exist in the sepulchres. Whatever the physical type of the
anterior population may have been, previously to the date of his
materials, had nothing to do with the task proposed. He was dealing
exclusively with known facts, and we cannot hut admire the sagacity
with which, for the first time in Egyptian ethnology, Morton brought
order out of a chaos — universally seen among authors prior to 1844.
Considering that he had before him hut a few monuments of the
X l It.h dynasty (in his day called the XVHth of Manetho), and nothing
of earlier date, his analysis of these, and of the XVTHth and
succeeding dynasties, must remain an imperishable attestation to
his genius.
In order to institute comparisons between the population of these
later dynasties with that upon the sculptures of the Old Empire, since
discovered, extracts at length from the Crania JEgyptiaca will place
before the reader the ideas of our great craniologist, together with
abundant exemplifications of the type of man prevalent in Egypt
duringf the Hew Empire.
“ The monuments from Meroe to Memphis, present a pervading type of physiognomy,
which is everywhere distinguished at a glance from the varied forms which not unfrequently
attend it, and which possess so much nationality, both in outline and expression, as to give
it the highest importance in Nilotic ethnography. We may repeat that it consists in an
upward elongation of the head, with a receding forehead, delicate features, but rather sharp
and prominent face, in which a long and straight or gently aquiline nose forms a principal
feature. The eye is sometimes oblique, the chin short and retracted, the lips rather tumid,
and the hair, whenever it is represented, long and flowing.
“ This style of features pertains to every class, kings, priests and people, and can be
readily traced through every period of monumental decoration, from the early Pharaohs
down to the Greek and Roman dynasties. Among the most ancient, and at the same time
most characteristic examples, are the heads of Amunoph the Second and his mother, as
represented in a tomb at T h e b e s ,263 which dates, in Rosellini’s chronology, 1727 years
before our era. In these effigies all the features are strictly Egyptian, and how strikingly
do they correspond with those of many of the embalmed heads from the Theban catacombsI
F ig . 1 2 1 . F ig . 1 2 2 .